D.E. Shaw SEC Settlement

by Editor
September 18, 2013 at 9:32 am

https://www.smartertimes.com/1008/de-shaw-sec-settlement

A nine-paragraph article inside the business section of the Times reports on 22 firms that settled civil charges with the SEC in connection with shorting a company's shares before an initial public offering, then buying shares in the initial public offering. One of the firms was D.E. Shaw.

The Times does not mention it, but the firm's founder and namesake, David Shaw, is a major Democratic political donor. Federal Election Commission records show he gave $1,375,000 in 2012 to Priorities USA Action, a left-leaning group, and $450,000 to the Senate Majority Pac, another Democrat-supporting group.

If a company owned by a big Republican-leaning donor such as Sheldon Adelson or Charles and David Koch got hit with that sort of SEC action, the Times would almost certainly have made a bigger deal out of it. There's no indication that Mr. Shaw himself was involved in the trading that led to the SEC settlement (he reportedly has stepped back from money-management and now spends most of his time on the science of protein-folding and similar matters), but the firm refused to comment to the Times and the SEC documents don't name anyone, so it is not clear what individual was involved, and whether that individual had any adverse consequences for his career within the firm.

D.E. Shaw is also the firm that paid Lawrence Summers $5.2 million for a one-day-a-week job, and that has met with the SEC and written to it to try to shape the rules on short-selling.

The rules that these firms are accused of violating may or may not make sense, but either way, the whole situation seems more newsworthy, and worth more detailed investigation, than the Times devotes to it.

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